By Allan Fox: Former WBA super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine (45-5, 27 KO’s) will be facing replacement opponent journeyman Billy Lyell (25-11, 5 KO’) on January 29th at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall, Queensland, Australia, according to Stuff.co.nz. The 38-year-old Mundine was supposed to fight welterweight Carson Jones, but he came down with the flu and had to pull out of the fight.
Mundine took a lot of criticism for wanting to fight Carson, because he was going to have a huge size advantage over him. Besides that, Carson had won only one fight out of his last four. But in selecting the 29-year-old Lyell, Mundine is getting a similarly poor opponent in that Lyell has lost two out of his last three fights. If nothing else, you can say that Mundine is remaining consistent in terms of the opposition he’s facing nowadays.
In Mundine’s last fight, he defeated the much smaller and older 42-year-old Shane Mosley by a 6th round TKO last November. What Mundine hoped to accomplish in fighting Mosley at this point in his career is unclear. Mosley is totally shot, and it was just a waste of time for Mundine to fight him in the first place.
Mundine has been saying that he wants a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr., but he’s not making the right moves to make that happen by facing well known opposition at 154 that are still relevant. There’s nothing wrong with Mundine fighting Mosley, but the timing is a little off. The fight should have taken place 12 years ago when Mosley was still in his prime, and not over-the-hill like he is now.
Mundine’s ranked at #4 WBA, and if he keeps winning he could get a title shot against WBA interim junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara. Something tells me that Mundine won’t agree to that fight. He’s obviously hoping that he can get a shot at Mayweather’s WBA title. That’s not going to happen. Mayweather’s holding onto the WBA 154 lb. title more as a status thing than anything else. There’s no one at 154 for Mayweather to fight other than Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto in rematches. Fighting Mundine would be a waste of time for Mayweather because Mundine never built up a fan base in the U.S. by fighting there.
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